and Laws design to make them though they do not always answer the good designments of the Government To what purpose then are these new Hypotheses fram'd and published Kings are exempted by their Office and the sacredness of their persons from all fears but the fears of Nature and these can never be discharged Those who do ill will fear ill eternally though their power were made little less than omnipotent for the frame of Humane Nature hath made it necessary to be so Besides God hath made one thing against another There is a divine Nemesis interwoven in the nature of things And God will always govern the World Omne sub regno duriore regnum The great Mogol at his Inauguration swears That his People shall be at peace at home and victorious abroad afflicted neither with Plague nor Famine but enjoy Health and Plenty all his days This seems extraordinary Pompous and Arrogant but it means no more than this that he will govern them so vertuously that Gods Providence shall be always propitious to his People and is no more in plain English than what our Church offers up in her publick Prayers for the King viz. That he may govern us in Wealth Peace and Godliness that he may live long and so govern us ought to be every honest mans Prayers But after all these vain Hypotheses contrived for making Kings Absolute it will be more easie for Kings to make their Reigns unquiet and turn their Kingdoms into Fields of blood But lastly to revive the ancient Zeal of the true Members of the Church of England against Popery To rectify the mistakes of some Gentlemen of the Clergy about the Dissenters And of our late Parliaments and their proceedings in reference to them Let it be considered how unreasonable their apprehensions are of any danger to the Church of England from the desires of the House of Commons of some indulgence or toleration in favour of the Dissenters at this time especially when the Protestant Religion is so shrewdly beset she hath reason now sure to take all such for her Friends that are heartily Enemies to Popery though not so skilful as they should be to ward off its assaults Since the Papists presume to call them Fanaticks though exactly conformable to the Church of England that will not assist to bring on the Popish Plot by dis-believing it and put us in fear of the Fanaticks by taking all the courses imaginable to provoke and exasperate them and to increase their discontents which they maliciously heighten and by falshood and forgeries misrepresent To graft thereupon a Pretence of a Protestant Plot for a pretext to extirpate Protestantism and introduce Popery which they impudently pretend to be of a more firm Allegiance to the Government than the Reformed Religion I pray let it be considered that that which is tolerated is put under disgrace even for that it is tolerated and that which tolerates even for that it tolerates hath the governing Authority and in so much as it indulgeth it obligeth to modesty and reason and if that indulgence should be abused it may and will be retracted It was never intended by the House of Commons that the Church of England should be altered or modelled to an agreeableness to any form or sect of the Separation or prescrib'd to by any of the Dissenters or that she should be made subject to any of their rules or opinions or her Liturgy laid aside for Directories or which is worse undervalued to the prophane way of extemporizing For as generally used and exercised it deserves no milder a stile That the Church should always govern by her own Wisdom in her own Province and in those things that appertain to her can never be deny'd her No man hath reason to say though he hath great cause to dislike the Separation and to have a bad opinion of the Dissenters that he had rather submit to Popery than to any form of the Separation for he need do neither except he pleaseth No man that thus expresseth himself but will be suspected to seek an occasion and pretence to become a Papist and to make a defection from the Church of England But if these Gentlemen have such a displeasure against Schism and Separation which certainly is the worst disease any Church can labour under and at this time threatens the destruction as well of the Protestant Religion it self as it doth to the Professors of all denominations let this sharpen their Zeal against Popery which by its unhallowed arts hath occasioned and exasperated our Schism and put them upon the use of all means to reconcile if possible the Schism that the Papists have already made and by all means endeavour to continue and take away if possible the occasion of it for the time to come And thus defeat the Arts of the Priests and Jesuits for supplanting our Church It is a most deplorable thing that our Church should be kept rent and divided in danger of being lost between Rituality and Scrupulosity Though the Scruples of the Nonconformists which I always thought and do still think groundless and unreasonable have often moved me into some passion against them yet upon consideration I think this their Scrupulosity may be of God and that some men are by him framed to it That he hath provided it as a bar and obstacle in the Natures and Complexions of some devout men against any Innovations whatsoever that dangerous ones may not steal upon the Church for the better maintaining the simplicity and purity of the Christian Religion and Worship But in saying this I have said nothing that is apt to give them a conceit of themselves but rather to humble them For the best men are not govern'd by their Temper and Constitution but correct them by their Reason and determine themselves by a clear and him Judgement What affrightment all this while either to Church or State from this weak and pityable Scrupulosity Where lyes the Treason or Sacriledge nay or so much as contumacy against our Ecclesiastical Governours which is so much upbraided to them The Christian Religion may be prejudiced by addition to as well as substraction from her rule The Church of Rome by her additions hath almost evacuated the Christian Faith Besides there may be a fineness in the outward mode of Religious Worship in it self very justifiable which may be not congenial to men of a course make The Worship of God will always favour of the manners of the people men of dull capacity can scarce admit of any Ceremonies without danger of falling into superstition or hardly escape being vext with endless and incurable scruples about them until for ease of their minds they throw them off But the wisdom of the best Law-makers hath considered in giving Laws what the people would bear and not what is best to be enjoyned and many things have been tolerated by them which they did not approve Ne majoribus malis detur occasio aut etiam
been ashamed of some of their works of darkness and do not bring into present use some of their most gross Impostures and some worse than Pagan Superstitions Yet when this light is extinguish'd it will be a most dismal and eternal Night upon the Christian world If we return to her our Ears will be bored and we shall be irredeemably enslaved The spirit of Popery if it returns and possesseth us again that hath been walking in the reformed Countries as in dry places seeking rest and finding none and finds us thus swept and garnisht will bring with it seven Devils more wicked than it self and our last estate will be worse than the first The Pride Cruelty and Avarice Domination and Luxury of their Priesthood will be aggravated upon us and the minds of the Laity more lowly depressed by Superstition and Ignorance The Gospel of Cardinal Palavicini will be the Canon of the Christian Religion or it may be something worse for who can tell what will be the Religion that that Church will offer in process of time to the world under the Christian-Name When the Pope by his pretended infallibility may make the Christian Religion what he please by interpreting adding altering or detracting with an uncontroulable Authority For us therefore to become Papists to return to the Church of Rome acknowledge the Popes Infallibility there is no other way to become Papists is virtually to betray the Christian Faith to renounce our Allegiance to our Lord Christ to prefer the Bulls of a profane Pope to the holy Oracles of God and the Revelation of Jesus God blessed for ever With this Religion therefore we can never make an accommodation we may as well make a Covenant with Hell This as Dr. Jackson one of the glories of the Church of England in his Book called The Eternal Truth of Scriptures vehemently admonisheth us admits no terms of parley for any possible reconcilement whose following words to this purpose I shall here transcribe The natural separation of this Island from those Countries wherein this Doctrine is professed shall serve as an everlasting Emblem of the Inhabitants divided Hearts at least in this point of Religion And let them O Lord be cut off speedily from amongst us and their Posterity transported hence never to enjoy again the least good thing this Land affords Let no print of their Memory be extant so much as in a Tree or Stone within our Coast Or let their Names by such as remain here after them be never mentioned or always to their endless shame Who living here amongst us will not imprint these or the like wishes in their Hearts and daily mention them in their Prayers Littora Littoribus contraria fluctibus undas Imprecor arma armis pugnent ipsique Nepotes Which he thus renders Let our forein Coasts joyn Battel in the Main E're this foul Blasphemy Great Britain ever stain Where never let it come but floating in a Flood Of our our Nephews and their Childrens blood I shall only subjoyn my hearty Desires and Prayers that we may all fear God and be zealous for his true Religion Honour the King and firmly adhere to the Government and in our several places steadily oppose and resist those Villains that are given to change That by our Vnion we may defeat the crafty designs of our cruel and implacable Enemies who if they can continue those Divisions they have made amongst us by their wicked Arts will certainly at length destroy us who are bent upon our destruction though they themselves perish with us we cease to be a Nation and our Language be forgotten in a foreign Captivity Sir Now I have given you my Answer to your Reasons to disswade me from publishing the Argument for the Bishops by representing how few of the Clergy can with reason be thought guilty of Opinions so mischievous to the Church and State which you charge to have generally corrupted them and how easily and with little consideration they will be laid aside by them I will make no other Apologie for the publishing this than that I have communicated these thoughts to no Man alive either of the Church of England or any other denomination or consulted any mans advice about it That I can serve to design of no party of men herein nor any particular design of my own I wish they can be serviceable in the least degree to publick good I have had them by me a great while and have considered them under the several varieties of temper that our bodies are disposed to which induce different thoughts and various apprehensions in most things under the several passions that the fluctuation of publick affairs have occasioned under the Ebbs and Flows of Hopes and Fears in reference to the state of the Kingdom for some length of time And finding them to have the same appearance and to give me the same satisfaction in all their several postures and the views that I could take of them I assure my self I was sincere when I thought and that they result meerly from my Judgment such as it is uncorrupted That I am not perverted or biassed by any secret passion or desire of any sort which many times lurk and steal upon us deceive us unawares and undiscernedly abuse us Sir the sum of my Apologie is this that I know my self sincere of honest Intentions moved by nothing but a hearty love and affection to our King Religion and Country And for what any man shall think of me I am not Solicitous Yours T. H. The Great and Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Relating to the Duke of York OR Successor of the Crown Offered to the KING and both Houses of Parliament CONSIDERED WITH An ANSWER to a LETTER from a Gentleman of Quality in the Country to his Friend relating to the Point of Succession to the Crown Whereunto is added A short HISTORICAL COLLECTION touching the same LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1682. TO THE READER I Have in the Postscript offered Reasons of the Lawfulness of an Act of Exclusion which to all true Protestants must needs be desirable if it can be lawfully obtained Yet for the farther satisfaction of unthinking people and Men of weak Minds who are never certain especially in great Matters where Men of Note are divided in their Opinions but for that very Reason where they have no direct Reason to guide them in forming their Judgment remain scrupulous if not doubtful and for that they doubt they must therefore conclude the Matter as to themselves at least unlawful I have Reprinted these Discourses that were Printed near three years since in Answer to two Books written by two Eminent Persons the first supposed to be writ by a great Secretary the other by a notable Lawyer thereto employed under promises and expectations of great Preferments This mans Book especially is highly applauded by the Ducal Party his very words made the stile of the
Prince should become our King Such an abhorrence they themselves had against the mischiefs that would thereupon ensue to the Nation Is it fit after this that the lawful endeavours to Exclude him should be accounted a Protestant Plot and those that desire it for that reason onely accounted Enemies to the Government and Designers to change it What madness is it that his arrival amongst us should be welcomed with any tokens of joy That Addresses should be made in his favour That we should court that mischief that the wisdom of all our Estates in several late Parliaments have consulted how to avoid To turn so fond of a Popish Successor as to be content to quit our Parliamentary Constitution our Government for his sake for his sake we have had Parliaments Dissolved and his presence will not give us leave to hope for a Parliament But let no honest man be affrighted and put out of Countenance with any Imputations or Reproaches of Sedition whilst he adheres to the Sense of all the Estates in Parliament and that which hath been in some sort the Kings Sense too They are the Seditious that propound deceitful Expedients which tend to change the Government and to Embroil His Majesties Kingdoms who are contrary to the Sense of the States of the Realm oppose the voice of Nature and the common Sense of the whole Rational world That are contrary to the Government and do as much as in them lies go about to dissolve it by lessening the Powers of Parliament exercised and declar'd in their Acts and more especially in the Act of Parliament 13 Eliz. Cap. 1. for that purpose was that declaratory Law made to prevent our relapse into Popery and the return of the Popish Superstition and the Roman yoak upon us These therefore are the only Murmurers amongst us against Moses and Aaron our Civil and Ecclesiastical Reformers who brought us out of the Land of Egypt and out of the house of Bondage who though dead yet speak and their Authority yet lives in our Laws and is to be obey'd by us we have no rules of Obedience to our Prince but the Laws and the Authoritative Declarations of the Government which are called the Kings Laws and the Kings Will and Pleasure whensoever they were first made in all succession of time These Murmurers are saying one to another Let us make a Captain and let us return into Egypt and yet they rub their foreheads and say that they are clear of the gain-saying of Korah and Dathan and are not of the company of Abiram Though if they will consider the story they will find themselves in that company for those that were for a Captain to return into Egypt Numb Cap. 14. did continue their Murmurings upon what ensued thereupon against Moses and Aaron headed by Korah Dathan and Abiram Numb Cap. 16. and both are remembred as one offence Psalm 106. So miserably do these men abuse their Consciences first and then abuse the Scripture to serve their turn The unstable more than the unlearned wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction These men against all congruity and analogy do object the story of Korah and his Accomplices against the Adherers to Moses and Aaron and reproach them with the Names of those Evil and unfortunate men who do what they can to hinder our return into Egypt and are not for this Captain of theirs Quis tulerit Graccos de Seditione querentes These are the most dangerous Schismaticks a most mischievous sort of Puritans The malignity of Puritanism is to pretend to be more righteous than Laws Where no Divine Law interposeth but the matters are left by God to the prudence of Governments and to their appointments and directions to pretend Religion for their Schismatical Separations to disobey their Governours when they have no command of God against their injunctions though they have no Law of God for the matter injoyn'd But the Church-Puritans have some pretence for their Disobedience because Religion is certainly of Divine Institution in the Substance and Essentials thereof they pretend they keep close to the Divine Institution and they at the worst do but preposterously prefer Sacrifice to Obedience But this Civil Puritanism which we complain of is neither Obedience to God or man nor yet Sacrifice Sacrifice it cannot be where Religion it self must be the Victim not Obedience but an enormous and monstrous sort of Disobedience they disobey not to please themselves but for meer mischief to themselves these are sinners against their own Souls with a witness By departing from the Rules of Government they are about to betray Gods true Religion and the Government and they must become either Rebels or Slaves either Apostates or Martyrs But Martyrs if they be it will be rather of their folly than of Religion and God will take no pleasure in the Sacrifice of Fools The wickedness and folly of these men seems peculiar to this present age it seems prepared by the Divine Nemesis to punish our prevarications from the rules and obligations of that Religion which we have dishonoured by our professing to believe it that so it and we should perish and be extinct together that we should then pretend to be conformable to the Institutions of his Holy Religion when we are in a course of utterly subverting it What impudent hypocrisie is this to pretend to obey our Governours for Gods sake when they really are contrary to the Fundamental Constitutions of State and by being so assist to the Extirpation of Gods true Religion Establisht amongst us by Law Laws cannot be controul'd by the Princes pleasure they oblige when his Personal Commands do not Kings cannot make their Governments other than an universal consent hath made them and such we are obliged to continue them A man may neglect his own private right without fault for in that he is onely accountable to himself But the Rights of the Government the Rights of the Community can never be lessened or neglected in their use when the condition of the Nation requires their Exercise Where we have a liberty or right to do an act a supervenient necessity makes that act our duty When the case occurs wherein that right is to be used and for which that Authority was created then they that have that right and that authority are as much obliged to use it as if there had been an express Law to injoyn them To be short I wish the haters of Puritans would consider for themselves as well as others that there is an obedience of Faith as well as of Manners due both to God and our Governours That our judgments are to be form'd by the rules of right Established by Law as well as our actions to be governed in obedience to Laws commanding and enjoyning them By that Faith that every man owes to the Government he is obliged to defend the Constitutions thereof they are more properly Covenants than Laws which yet Aristotle calls so they are the Communes
Reipublicae Sponsiones If we do not form our actions in agreeableness thereto and comport with them in our judgments we do not onely disobey the Authority of Laws but are also false Traytors to the Government by violating our publick Faith And now O ye people foolish and unwise ye stupid and perverse generation will you still persevere to call that which is lawful nay necessary nay commendable and heroical to which we are urged by necessity to which we are obliged by the virtues of Religion to God Loyalty to our King the Faith that we owe to the Community A doing Evil that Good may come thereof Your own Condemnation must be just if you be detruded amongst the number of stupid Sots reckoned amongst those that have lost their Reason extinguished their Faculties suppressed their virtue and have no other use of their Reason left them but what is to betray them to greater Evils as a just punishment for their former abusing it You perversely and absurdly mis-apply words without sense To the purpose that you may give countenance to your impieties your utter neglect of Gods true Religion the safety of your Prince and the publick peace and become Traytors to God your King and Countrey without any sense or remorse I have but one Observation to make and one word of my self and I shall conclude The Observation is this Scarce any Government hath been intestinely destroyed but its destruction was from it self which could never have hapned if the great men had not been guilty of connivance at and sufferance of Evils that might have been timely prevented And for that after the long continued stupidity of the upper and lower vulgus which are moved by nothing but what they feel they have grown impatient of the smart of those Evils they could not or would not foresee To this Histories do give ample testimony as they do also testifie that Concussions in Governments and Convulsions in State proceed mostly from Flatterers incroachments of power attempts upon the Government and decay of Faith and Trust in our Governours and secondly from Factious Demagogues But these never appear until the Flatterers and Projectors upon Government have first played their tricks they wait as Owls for the twi-light and Woodcocks for the winter they are onely useful as revulsive remedies against the Evils of the other but are without all manner of Grace where the Government is uprightly and duely Administred And thirdly and principally from the frailty of Humane Virtue When some of better place for the preservation of the Ancient Government and Gods true Religion amongst us will not endure to forego or loose some accommodations or advantages of life which they may be well without and perhaps do not deserve how can it be expected that the generality of Mankind should suffer Martyrdoms in meer Loyalty that is be contented to become miserable and and calamitous and have no other payment for their miseries and Calamities they suffer but that their Prince receives therein an imaginary pleasure and a false satisfaction When all is said men will never govern themselves by the Doctrine of the severe Casuists But their virtue of Loyalty will bear the same proportion as their other virtues do to the Canon of Morality The best service that can be done to any Government is to keep it true to its own Constitution good and tolerarable to the People To this all wise and good men should in their several places apply themselves with Heroical zeal a busie care manly and firm resolutions and thereby prevent if possible those Evils that Mankind will not endure and sustain If all that were dis-interested from any Faction would interpose with wise applications to such purposes Governments would not be so easily dissolv'd and Nations rendred miserable or ruin'd If all that are illightned and truly honest would thus dutifully behave themselves at all times to their King and Countrey both Demagogues and Flatterers would soon be ashamed confounded and forsaken both by Prince and People and Governments be of everlasting continuance But that no man may wonder at my boldness and the freedom I have used in these Discourses I have only this true account to give of my self That Loyalty and Religion and the Prosperity and Peace of my Countrey have therein entirely conducted my thoughts and guided my hand I have therein affirmed nothing but what is publickly known for truth and which the Cause I defend requires to be said It is the Cause of our Government Religion and Nation that I advocate The Cause is pleaded in its proper Court before God and the King Angels and Men no other forum can take Cognizance of the Cause To this the Writers of the other side hath invited us by appealing thereto with their Reasons I am free from any just imputation of malice and contumely against the person who is most concerned in the right disputed I have consulted therein his true Interest which cannot be divided from the Peace and Happiness of Three Kingdoms Justice her self will acquit me from having done any thing amiss and I cannot suffer in the Censures of honest and reasonable men In these Considerations I am encircled as in a brazen wall safe and secure for as for the fears of Rage and Injustice they shall never affect me The POSTSCRIPT SIR I Now render you my hearty thanks for your free advice you gave me concerning the publishing of the Argument for the Bishops Right of Judging in Capital Causes in Parliament and for asserting their civil Honours and Rights in the Government Because it hath given me an occasion both of vindicating the most of the Inferiour Clergy from those Imputations which you have remembred to me and are commonly discoursed to their disadvantage whereby they have lost their Esteem with the People and also of rectifying the mistakes of some for their number is not great who have given too much cause therein of publick complaints You disswade me from giving any assistance to the Rights of the present Bishops for that the Clergy out of whom the Bishops must be made have entertained Principles that are destructive to the Government They affirm you say That it is in the Power of a Prince by Divine Right to govern as he pleaseth that the power of the Laws is solely in him that he may if he please use the consent of Parliaments to assist the reason of his Laws when he shall give any but it is great condescention in Kings to give a reason for what they do and a diminution to their most unaccountable Prerogative You say That they are for a Popish Successor and no Parliament and do as much as in them lies give up our Ancient Government and the Protestant Religion the true Christian Faith to the absolute will of a Popish Successor giving him a Divine Right to extirpate Gods true Religion established amongst us by Law and to evacuate our Government by his absolute pleasure Our Government by a
submissions which is the sum of the Apostles Doctrine in this matter The Christian Religion instituted no form of Governments but enjoyns us to be obedient to those we have not onely by express command in the case but by its general Rules of a most refined improved and extensive morality But though I said the Scriptures have not prescribed or directed any universal Form of Governments yet the Scripture hath declared the falshood of this new Hypothesis of Kingly Government to be Jure Divino or by Divine Right For St. Peter 1 Peter 2.13 and 14 stiles Kings as well as the Governours under him the ordinance of man which cannot have any other sence but that men make them and give them their powers By St. Paul the power of Governments indeed is called Gods Ordinance Romans 13.2 but that is for this reason because in general God approves of Governments as necessary to the well-being of Mankind for the improvement of humane nature for the punishing of Vice encouragement and security of Virtue without them it being impossible to live honestly and in peace And he hath made them the under-Ministers of his providence and care over Mankind and expects of them that they should promote his true Honour and worship in the world which will be always accompanied with the exercise of all civil virtues These two different places must be so understood that they may be both true and by no other interpretation can they be reconciled and made consistent It is impossible that any thing can be of mans appointment which is of Gods Ordination there can be no such thing as a Co-legislative power of Men with their Maker Government therefore is from God as he hath made Governments necessary in the general order of things but the specification thereof is from men The best definition that can be made of Government is in the words of both the Apostles put together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such Governments which men make God approves and requires our obedience to them upon all those reasons which make Governments necessary The natural and easie consequence and result of these Scriptures is this which I desire those Gentlemen to observe That whatsoever is not lawfully established by men no Law of God not the Christian Law doth oblige us to obey The Christian Religion doth equally condemn in the reason of its Institutions Usurpation and Contumacy Where the Apostle admonish us that if we be free we should not become Servants he hath by virtue of that Admonition made it commendable not to suffer the encroachments of Power over us Most certainly therefore as the Christian Religion doth not prejudice the Soveraign Rights of Princes such as they are in the several Forms and Models of Monarchical Governments non eripit terrestria qui regna dat coelestia as Sedulius so doth it not enlarge them when by the Gospel God made us free from his own positive Laws to the Jews sure he did not intend thereby de Jure to render us Slaves to the Arbitrary pleasure of men No man intends by any thing in the Scripture that all Mankind is obliged to any one Form of Government and therefore all men are left to their own It hath not therefore altered the terms of Government and Obedience that every Nation hath established for themselves but hath confirmed and strictly obliged the observance of them To Obedience to Government we are obliged by as many ties as there are Christian Virtues and he must disown his Christianity that departs from his due Allegiance And since our Saviour is declared King of Kings and Lord of Lords all Christian Kings are to govern in imitation of his mercy and goodness and in subserviency to the interest of his Religion and Kingdom Regum timendorum in proprios greges Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis cuncta supercilio moventis Whence then is this absolute Authority of Kings if it come neither from God nor man Give me leave now to inform you that these opinions render you all Traytors guilty of Treason of State perduellionis rei obnoxious to be punished as Traitors by an Authority lodg'd in Parliament in the Constitution of the Government You your selves must needs condemn your selves to have forfeited all your own who hold such Principles that tend to destroy every mans Right by resolving all things into the absolute pleasure of a Monarch in which you mostly disserve the King and are contrary to his Majesties late Declaration The men of these Principles the less of the Government they are intrusted with the better for the less they have to give up and betray I confess if I could believe that this Doctrine was become Orthodox among them and the prevailing opinion of the Clergie I should conclude us to be the most unhappy people under the Sun This is an Hypothesis indeed that will bring on new Heavens and a new Earth but such wherein no Peace or Righteousness can ever dwell But I deem all such as are Defenders and Promoters of it do deserve a civil Excommunication more smarting than their Ecclesiastical and to be condemned to live upon and onely feed themselves with their thin and crude Speculations To be excluded from any share of that Government that they professedly in their Principles betray To be punished as seditious persons and most mischievous Schismaticks far more intolerable in this matter than the scrupulous Brotherhood for their boglings at an indifferent and insignificant Ceremony For that to the ruine of our Religion and destruction of the publick Peace they divide from that Polity to which by drawing here their first breath they made Faith and to which the condition of their birth doth oblige them they falsifie that which Arrian in his Epictetus calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than which nothing is more sacred and inviolable By creating themselves a new Allegiance and obtruding it upon their fellow-Citizens and Members of the same Kingdom they set up a Kingdom within a Kingdom more dangerous and mischievous than the Papal Imperium in Imperio which certainly will be introduced if this Modern and monstrously-extravagant opinion can prevail by a general Credence It is criminal and no less dangerous to the being of any Polity to restrain the Legislative Authority and to entertain Principles that disable it to provide remedy against the greatest mischiefs that can happen to any Community No Government can support it self without an unlimited power in providing for the happiness of the people No Civil establishment but is controulable and alterable to the publick weal. Whatever is not of divine Institution ought to yield and submit to this power and Authority The Succession to the Crown is of a civil nature not established by any Divine Right Several Kingdoms have several Laws of Succession some are Elective others Hereditary under several Limitations All humane Constitutions are made cum sensu humanae imbecillitatis under reasonable exceptions of unforeseen accidents and emergencies
that may happen in humane affairs and so they must be intended and so interpreted The several limitations of the descent of the Crown must be made by the people in conferring the Royal Dignity and Power which is more or less in several Kingdoms And the descent of the Crown in particular cases is governed according to the presumed will of the People and the presumption of the Peoples will is made by measuring and considering what is most expedient to the publick good whereas private Estates are directed in their descent according to the presumed will of the Decedents And this is the reason tha◠the descent of the Crown is governed by other rules than private Estates Onely one Daughter and not all as in private Estates shall succeed to the Crown because the strength of the Kingdom is preserved when continued united and the peace and concord of the people better established A son of the second venter shall inherit which is not allowed in private Estates because a son of the second venter is equally of the bloud of the great Ancestor upon whom the Crown was first conferred by the people or after he had got into the Throne obtain'd their Submissions and may equally participate of his virtues If the Royal Family be extinct it belongs to the people to make a new King under what limitations they please or to make none for the Polity is not destroyed if there be no King created and consequently in case of this cesser or discontinuance of the Regnum there may be Treason committed against the people By all which it is evident that the Succession to the Crown is the peoples right And though the Succession to the Crown is Hereditary because the people so appointed it would have it so or consented to have it so yet in a particular case for the saving the Nation the whole Line and Monarchy it self it may be altered by the unlimited power of the Legislative Authority We have been more just to the Royal Succession than the wonderful Sir Robert Filmer for his Hypotheses will not allow at all of Hereditary rightful Succession For he establishing the right of the universal Empire of the World in Adams right Heir since this Illuminato hath enlightned the world in this secret no Successor can according to his Doctrine derive any hereditary right from his Predecessor His title can be only his own possession for no man can claim by descent the Usurpation of his Father but he that is not conscious to the wrong and is bonae fidei possessor under the presumed right and title of his Father I would be understood to speak as the matter can be considered in a free reason not under the prejudice of any positive municipal Law for to such Laws the right of Crowns as the renowned Knight will have it are not submitted So that here in this matter their Knight fails them and can give them no help Their other friend the great Leviathan-maker is so far from establishing an Hereditary Succession that he leaves Kings to be rightfully assaulted deposed and destroyed by any person that can who stands in danger of being destroyed by the King though justly condemned to death Leviathan Part 2. cap. 21. Those saith he that have committed a capital Crime for which they expect death have the liberty to defend themselves by Arms as well as the Innocent But I mention him onely to render him detestable for I take his Books to be the dehonestamenta humani generis But I desire them to regard the sence of all Mankinde in the words of Isiodorus Pelusiota 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This governed the Judicious and Learned Dr. Falkner for when he had carried Christian Loyalty as high as he could to the honour of our Religion and the benefit of the world for which we are all extreamly beholden to him he concludes thus in his excellent Book called Christian Loyalty viz That if any Prince undertakes to alienate his Kingdom or to give it up into the hands of another Soveraign Power or that really acts the Destruction or the Vniversal Calamity of his people Grotius thinks that in his utmost extremity the use of a Defence as a last refuge ultimo necessitatis presidio is not to be condemned provided the care of the Common Good be preserved And if this be true saith he it must be upon this ground that such attempts of ruining do ipso facto include a disclaiming the governing of these persons as Subjects and consequently of being their Prince or King What unreasonableness is there then in shutting the Door upon him and making it fast against him by an Act of State who hath excluded himself by his principles and designs For the truth of the fact I shall onely refer you to his Secretary Coleman his Letters wherein he saith That his Masters interest and the King of France his interest is one and the same and their design their glorious design the same viz the extirpating the Northern Heresie How far the King of France hath complied with the design the cruel Persecution and Exiles of his Protestant Subjects who at the time of that Letter were under the security and protection of the Laws of that Kingdom and the Faith of that Crown do declare to the world And by what secret influences I know not he is made so great his Conquests so easie and expedite that he is like to do the work himself here in England too and go away with all the Glory But if the work must lie upon our hands let no man think with himself that Popery is not to be introduced here because the numbers of Papists are few for that will not render the design impracticable but the execution of it more cruel and barbarous a whole Nation upon the matter must be corrupted from the Faith of the true Religion or destroy'd One single arm of an ordinary strength not resisted may assassinate a whole Nation Let no man betray his Country and Religion by pretending the example of the patience and sufferance of the Primitive Christians for our rule The Reformed Religion hath acquired a civil right and the protection of Laws if we ought not to lose our Lives Liberties and Estates but where forfeited by Law we ought much rather not to lose them for the profession of the best Religion which by Law is made the publick National Religion And it is strange that some men of the same Religion in profession can think that notwithstanding it makes no matter what is done to men if they be Religious but if they be not so the least publick injuries and injustice threatned or done them may be resisted vindicated remedied and by right defended by old Laws or new ones to be made for that purpose The Christian Religion was publish'd when the whole world was Pagan and therefore it was submitted to such usage as the Governments would give it But when the Christian Faith had by miracles of
patience declared it self to be of Heaven and of a divine Original according to the Prophesies on that behalf it took possession of the Empire Crowns and Scepters became submitted to the Cross The Christians acquired a civil right of Protection and Immunity which they ought not they cannot relinquish and abandon no more than they can destroy themselves or suffer Violence and Cruelty to destroy the Innocent Such as thus perish shall never wear a Martyrs Crown but perish in the next world for perishing in this This will be interpretatively Crucifying Christ afresh after he is received up into Glory i. e. after his Religion is exalted into Dignity and Honour and civil Authority If the Senate of Rome had been Christians they would never have given up the Government to a Pagan Augustus with a power to him and his Successors to make Laws for extirpating the Christian Faith What is said of the Christian Religion and Paganism holds between the Reformed Religion and Popery If any man is so vain as to say that an unalterable course of Succession to the Crown is established amongst us by Divine Right I say he is a man fitted to believe Transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope he is deeply lapsed into Fanaticism he dreams when he is awake and his Dreams are Dreams of phrensie There are some things so false that they cannot be disproved as some things are so evidently true that they cannot be proved This Proposition hath no colour to ground it self upon no medium to prove it no argument for it which is to be answered nor is there any thing more absurd than it self to reduce it to But if any shall adde that this Doctrine is the Doctrine of the Reformation and adventure to tell the people so they are the most impudent falsaries that ever any Age produced when there is scarce a Child but hath heard what was done said and maintained by the Clergie of England in the Case of Mary Queen of Scots a Popish Successor in the earliest time of our Reformation here in England Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly Learned and Prudent By the Providence of God and the Piety of our Ancestors they possess good though not to be envyed Revenues and Honours It is scarce possible they should have many among them that can countenance a proposition so wickedly impious and sacrilegious That we cannot have new Laws for the preservation of our Religion but must lose the old at the pleasure of a Popish Successor against not their own interest and the Rights of the Church but against the Rights and Liberty of Religion it self For she is capable of Franchises and Immunities which ought above all things to be most zealously asserted and defended by her Ministers Can they themselves with their own hands ever pull down her Hedg and destroy her Defensatives and expose her helpless to the rage of her implacable Enemies and suspend all the Legal security she hath for her preservation upon the Life of our present King whom God long preserve If Kings be admitted to have a power to make Laws one Proclamation may establish the Popish Religion amongst us which the Papal Bulls so long as that See continues will never be able to effect Next to Religion her self the Revenues of the Church challenge their faithful care for they are at best but Usu-fructuary Trustees of her Endowments for the Succession which they will wretchedly betray to an Arbitrary Successor if they do not repress such Opinions that pretend to change the Government into an absolute jure Divinity Monarchy which will leave nothing jure divino but it self and the Popedom Kings for their so doing have the authority of Sir Robert Filmer who affirms in his Treatise called the Power of Kings Fol. 1. That the Laws Ordinances Letters Patents Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express consent or at least by the sufferance of the Prince following who had a knowledge thereof This is but the necessary consequence and result from the Doctrine of the absolute power of a Prince for in such Government the Concessions of a Predecessor can no more oblige the Successor than he can Govern when he is dead and the Successor must be absolute in his time as the Predecessors were in theirs But in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird this deceit is of so gross a thread that it cannot pass with the common people much less upon our Clergy But I will not dissemble what may be the true reason of the seduction of some young good-natured Gentlemen of the Clergy It is thus they perswade themselves that if these principles and opinions of the Vnlimited Power of Kings had been received the late Wars had been prevented Not rightly considering that if such opinions had never been broached or Universally rejected that War could never have ensued and we should together with peace have enjoyed our ancient Government which our Ancestors transmitted to us without that miserable inter-regnum I would not be perversely understood by any man as if I went about to justify our late War This is all I say that every Government once established will continue for ever if all the parts of it would unalterably consent to preserve it to which their natural Allegiance doth oblige them And never any Prince endeavored to change the Government but where part of the people were first willing or content to have it so Those false flatterers that go about to remove the boundaries of power and change the Government are the greatest enemies to the quiet and happy Reigns of Kings and the peace and prosperity of Kingdoms And if they do adventure to call their fellow-Subjects by any opprobrious names of disloyalty because they will not joyn with them in such change they are as absurdly impious and insolent as any Prince or State would be who should challenge another as free and absolute as himself for his Tributary and Vassal and traduce him for a troubler of the World because he would not Compose the Quarrel thus injuriously sought with the surrender of his Crown and Dignity I desire these Gentlemen to consider that the happiness of a Nation is best supported with Truth and Justice This new Doctrine is not true and whosoever entertains a belief of it is not onely barely mistaken but will be led by the mistake into the most mischievous impious and sacrilegious injustice and treachery It is very agreeable to a good man to embrace a proposition with an easie belief that offers the least seeming probability of a security against the miseries of War by all means to be avoided But this Doctrine of the Divinity of Kings is most dangerous to the Peace of Kingdoms for it is pregnant with Wars Besides that it will give bad Princes which sometime hereafter may be Born into the World for such there have been now and then power to
the Bill of Exclusion an Antichristian Attempt Repugnant to the Ordinance of God though God never yet made any Law or Ordinance in that Case and the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom though no Laws of Men are so Fundamental but they are alterable The Constitution of Government is indeed unalterable by Law but no Laws but are alterable by the Government for the Government was before Laws and made and constituted most chiefly for the business of Legislation That the House of Commons assumes a Soveraign Power he knows to be false and knows too that all the world knows he is therein a Falsary What can be expected of Candour or Sincerity from a man of such Effrontery and to the making the Slander compleat he joyns Despotical to Soveraign power as if they were the same an instance of his egregious Ignorance except he flatters the King and would signifie to him that he hath despotical power because he hath a Soveraign Power and this commends him indeed for a true Patriot A Despotical Power is such as Masters use over their Servants that command what they will because they will Soveraign Power is exercised for the good of those that are governed and the Commands that come from the Soveraign Power are Laws that are deduc'd from publick Reason as they are the publick Measures and are always reasonable or pretend to be so No body ever affirmed before this Addresser to the King That it hath been the Ancient Custom of Parliaments to dispose of the Crown or that it depended upon the Suffrages of the Subjects which he falsly and maliciously adventures to say to misrepresent the most Venerable late House of Commons whose Proceedings will justifie themselves in true Story to all succeeding Generations and will we all hope be seconded and out-done by the next if the good People can keep themselves from being deceived by such Artificial men as this Addresser is But this is said and truly That a Parliament which is King Lords and Commons have declared and particularly a Parliament in the Reign of that most Excellent Princess Queen Elizabeth of Eternal Memory the wisest and greatest of the Princes that are Glorious for the Reforming the Christian Religion did declare a Power in themselves for Great and Weighty Reasons of State to alter the Succession otherwise than of course it is by Law appointed and most reasonable it is for no Government can want a Power to preserve it self and obtain its great end viz. the preservation of the Community and Polity it self and no less Reasons than these require and urge the Use and Exercise of this Power in an Act of Parliament for Excluding the D. from Succeeding to the Imperial Crown of England In order to these ends the Power of a Parliament is unrestrain'd and unlimited which this Consideration-Monger calls Scoffingly Impiously and Prophanely towards God and irreverently towards the Government Omnipotency In the next Paragraph he produceth his first Reason against the Excluding Bill And by an execrable Argument he adventures to prove That the descent of the Crown is Sacred viz. That an Attainder in Treason cannot debar the next Heir from succeeding in the Government But if the Heir had died of that Attainder the Argument had been spoiled For cannot that Power that can inflict Capital Sentences and that ought to do it against all in subjection that incur them Banish instead of Kill sure he is no true Friend to his Royal Highness whatever he pretends we will sooner admit him a true Patriot for that he makes the condition of his presumptive Heir so hard That he must either Die or Reign A very judicious Advocate and deserves very well of his Client who will remember him sure when he comes into his Kingdom for bringing him into such danger I believe this considering Patriot shifted himself in this Consideration into France where they have Princes of the Blood against whom no Criminal Process can be formed nor no Attainder of Blood is admitted to the purpose that the most enormous Crimes may not seem faults in those that participate of the blood of that haughty Tyranny But the better to disguise himself he criminates the Parliament calls the House of Commons in derision Cunning Politicians that would have a new Model of Government he chargeth them with assuming a power to depose the King and will conclude because he will and hopes the People will take his Word for it for no other reason in the world that we may as well Depose the King as foreclose a Presumptive Heir which he will call deposing him for this Ruffian-like man will not submit to the common use of Words and is at defiance with the common Sense of Mankind and will say it That it is as lawful to Depose the Possessor of the Crown as to make an Act of Parliament for preserving the Life of the present King by disabling the next Successor that brings it in danger And likens the late House of Commons upon the score of their Bill of Exclusion to the Rump Oh! for a Discoverer that would bring this man to Light and Shame and thereby to Reason and Sobriety Upon this weak and slight colour of a Reason see in the next Paragraph how he lays about him with what vehemency and expostulation and yet in his magisterial Rant the trifler could no sooner name an extravagant Bill but he thinks of a Box of Gilded Pills which if he had been lately under cure by Mr. Hobbs his Doctrine of the train of Thoughts they could not escape coming together And yet this Thinking Addresser is not altogether so happy in dividing and opposing as in compounding For he affirms that to go about to establish the Protestant Religion by a Bill to Exclude the Popish Successour is inconsistent with the Government and is to destroy the very Root and Life of Government But pray Sir for the sake of Reason tell us Doth the Government it self depend upon the person that Governs or is the Government it self changed by the alteration of the Succession may not Governments for kind the same have different modes of Succession and are not the kinds of Succession more than the kinds and forms of Government Can the Government be safe without a Power to exclude a Person inhabil in Nature to support it or of one Principled to destroy it Can we imagine a Government which is of Humane Contrivance to be without a Power to preserve it self and an Authority in Cases that threaten its Ruine to interpose with apt Remedies for its preservation That a Government made by men should be left meerly to chance and the contingency of Birth whatever happens of inability in the Persons that come under the general Rule and Limitation of Succession Doth the Exercise of this power turn the Kingdom from being Hereditary to Elective is there no difference between the inconvenience of Judging of the several Degrees of fitness in several persons competently qualified and the
intendments How unreasonable therefore are the Tragical Exaggerations of the considerer making it the most heinous wickedness and the most crying Injustice to alter that which in its own nature is alterable and by an Act of the Government to exclude the D. from the Succession as a person unfit and unsafe to be entrusted with the Government though in the general order thereof he was thereto designed besides that he hath forfeited that kind of right that he had by that general appointment Is this saith he the way of establishing the Protestant Religion he saith this is exactly to follow the footsteps of that Monster of Ingratitude the wicked Jeroboam who after God of his infinite goodness had raised him from nothing and established him Monarch of the ten Tribes of Israel yet was he so mistrustful of Gods Power in preserving his Kingdom for the future that he thought nothing could secure it but his own accursed Policy Our Considerer seems to have a high value for Rule and Domination otherwise he would not have called the advancement of Jeroboam to rule by Usurpation an effect of the infinite goodness of God But these words were put in to make that story of Jeroboam parallel to our case and he intends thereby to remember us of the little power that the reformed Religion sometimes had perhaps in the time of Queen Mary and to charge upon the Protestant Religion and reproach it with a Revolt and unjustifiable Schismatical departure from the Church of Rome in the time of Queen Elizabeth and the acquiring and possessing it self of the Government And now behold the man now you know him and his Religion and how fit he is to offer Considerations for the D. against the Bill But shortly to destroy his parallel he may know that the Reformation did only assert and reassume the Rights of the Crown usurp'd by the Bishop of Rome We did reform the Religion of our Church to primitive Christianity from which the Church of Rome had seduced us but therein we used no other Power than what belongs to every Church to reform it self we were never of right and duty subject to the Church of Rome she never rightfully had any Authority over us and therefore we could not Schismatically revolt from her nor are parallel at all in this to Jeroboam though this man will compare us to him and thereby slily charge us with monstrous Ingratitude to God and accursed Policies because we will not again give up our Civil Rights to the Tyranny of Rome nor lose again the true Christian Religion in the Superstitions and corrupt Doctrines of that Church and because we will not forbear to use that power which is lawful to every Government Except this be his meaning and he himself a Papist he might with as much pertinency have told any other story of Jeroboam or of any other of the Kings of Israel and Judah in the Books of the Kings or Chronicles or of Belteshazzar or Nebuchadonozor Zenacherib Ahasuerus or Holofernes or Antiochus or any other King or Name in story Sacred or Prophane Of all these he could not have found out any thing more unlike to have compared with us to have remarked himself for a man of great Considerations For Jeroboam corrupted the true Worship of God to support an Usurped Crown but the design of the Bill against which he declaims is to support a Lawful Government and the best Religion by a legal Act of that Government So that we will invert that Wo which he pronounceth against us out of the Prophet Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong into a Wo against himself Wo unto him that putteth evil for good and darkness for light and casteth a stumbling-block before his neighbour But in what follows of this Writer of Considerations I doubt me whether he doth not act the part of a scorning Atheist for that he would perswade the World from all care and regard of Religion by telling us it is able to shift for it self it being the work of Gods own hand His Atheistical scorn and low valuation of the true Christian Religion is further very notorious and remarkable for that he makes the establishment thereof amongst us to be such a like work of the Almighty Hand of God that establish'd Jeroboam in the Kingdom of Israel O thou Insensatus Galata to return thy own Exclamation which thou usest against thy own honest and discerning Country-men upon thy stupid self For who I pray you but a senseless man would compare a providential permission of the revolt of the ten Tribes for the sins of David and the sins and oppressions of Solomon to which the People were prepared by the exactions oppressions and riotous Reign of Solomon and his Successor Rehoboam to the work of the Reformation which was the delivery and restoring to it self the Gospel of Christ and his true Religion which was spoiled and depraved by the Church of Rome for the benefit I doubt not of all the Ages of Mankind to the end of the World against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail and which we in despight of the Roman Successor shall see yet flourish in this Land But we must not expect though God did first plant his Church by Miracles in Nature and demonstrations of the Spirit of Power by the wonderful Gifts of the Holy Ghost and by the Spirit of Glory resting upon the Primitive Martyrs of the Holy Faith and did restore the purity of the Christian Faith by a Miraculous Providence and the Spirit of Martyrdom which we are now peacefully and Legally possessed of I say we have no reason to expect Wonders for our preservation when it seems to be in our own hands Nor ought we to subject the Professors of the True Religion again to Slaughters Fire and Faggot Tortures Inquisitions and Massacres Let us not think that our Government as it lies in History and our Laws in Books and Parliament-Rolls which will easily suffer an Index expurgatorius and make no complaint can defend us and it against the Instruments and Engines designed for its subversion in the Plot and the powers that have been long addressing to that purpose and are now at leisure to execute what we know is designed against us better than we can make out and discover This Expression I know would scarce pass for sense in any other Age or Matter but we live in an Age of Mystery and Prodigy producing things Monstrous and unnatural and our Language must be agreeable to the things we speak of The True Patriot proceeds and affirms That it is an unwarrantable Attempt and a point without example or president to Depose a Prince for not complying with his People in Religion I appeal to all that shall read him whether he appears to be a man of Reading enough to warrant him to pronounce a general Negative in this matter But by this time there is nothing so extravagant but
you will allow agreeable to the man I believe immodesty is the unhappy Vice and Fate of his Nature for no man ever arrived to the like Degree in it before him you must not ask what he means by a point without example or president or why he puts us a point that is not in our Case and still will be talking of deposing a Prince for this man oweth no account of his matters But thou False Considerer So Loyal I am That I would not have that point in the Case for half I am worth But pray why thus impertinent Why dost thou send us to Asa and Maachah Jeroboam Rehoboam Jehu and Joram Asa and his Mother and Azaria we know little of the Constitution of the Jewish Monarchy save that God after the Jews had rejected his Government and desired a King kept some remains of his Theocracy over them which he administred by his Prophets whom he commissioned to Exauctorate and Anoint Kings Their Histories are short but besides every Nation is to be governed by their own Laws and there are as many kinds almost of Governments as there are Governments we are not warranted by their Presidents nor to be Justified or Condemned by them but we must Stand or Fall to our own Laws But let this Patriot know that our case will never be Cromwels as he reproaches us we will not neither can we stand in need of any Apology that would serve either for the Rump or him for we are preserving that Government and Church which they destroyed Neither will we O man of small Consideration make use in our defence of the Papists excluding the King of Navarr a Protestant King in France No more than we will allow the French to murder a Protestant Minister because we execute a Seditious Traiterous Roman Priest No more than we can allow in others or justifie in our selves to prosecute dissenting Protestants whose Principles are peaceable and obedient to Governours Because we duly sharpen our Laws and exact the Severity of them against the Papists the sworn enemy to all Religions but their own and to all mankind upon the score thereof How grosly therefore is that of the Apostle misapplyed Whosoever thou art O man that judgest another c. For doth a publick Executioner incur the Judgment of shedding mans Blood for executing a Sentence against a Murderer Thou man of Observation mayst possibly know what kind of Beasts we muzzle and tye up He observes for our Imitation That the Orthodox did not Depose the Arrian Emperours we ought undoubtedly to imitate them therein for that no man much less a Prince ought to lose any right for a Speculative Error or meer mis-belief But onely for wicked practices and opinions that promote excite and encourage them But it is also very observable which the Considerer by his mention of Julian the Emperour in this place gives me occasion to offer That the Behaviour of the Church towards the Pagan Roman Emperours was much different from that which they bore to Julian who succeeded to Christian Emperours was educated a Christian and sometimes bore a place in the Church for whereas the Apostles had enjoyned the Christians to pray for the Pagan Emperours though actual Persecutors of the Church yet the whole Church did Curse and Anathematize Julian with an Anathema quo Deus rogatur ut aliquem è medio tollat In Julianum cum defectioni adderet machinationes evertendi Christianismi usa est Ecclesia isto extremae necessitatis telo à Deo est exaudita Grotius in Luc. Cap. 6. Vers 12. I will not trouble the Reader with more Quotations to this purpose the Authority of this Great man is more than ten Witnesses And for what he lays down generally that the Orthodox did not Depose the Arrian Emperours I must remember him out of Socrates the Ecclesiastical Historian lib. 2. cap. 38. Gr. when the Souldiers of Constantius the Arrian Emperour were by his command sent to enforce them to become Arrians they took Arms in defence of their profession of Religion how justifiable therein I will not now discourse But this may be said that the Christian Religion with indifferency to all Sects was made the Religion of the Empire by Imperial Rescripts and all Christians had thereby a Civil Right to a free and undisturbed profession of their Religion in their several Perswasions For Constantine the Great carried so indifferent an hand between the Contending Parties that he endeavoured to make Peace rather by silencing the Disputes than by determining the Controversie Worthy of the imitation of the Guides of Christendom and the onely means of freeing the Reformed Religion from being depraved by the Jargon and Gibberish of the Sectaries If the Crown should devolve upon the Roman Successor it would require consideration whether we could justifie the Dethroning of him though the French Papist could not be justified in rejecting the King of Navar. But this untrue Patriot shifts his Cause from what it is to what it is not that he may have some colour to inveigh against the true Patriots far more excellent and righteous than himself and have some umbrage to betray the best Religion and the best Government while he pretends with false Hypocrisie to support them But I am glad to find in him at least one grain of Sense and Honesty he saith well to do him right that is the best Religion that gives every one his due But he must consider farther to the confusion of the Cause he Advocates That to give every one his due is to administer Defence to the Innocent and by Authority of Law to subdue the aggressors of Mankind how great and mighty soever they be for they that are mighty Offenders ought in proportion to be mightily punished Fiat Justitia therefore as he saith Ruat Coelum for to punish much less to lay a restraint upon evil Persons is not to do evil that good may come of it which he would impute to the proceedings in Parliament against the Duke for which he must be self-condemned for I cannot take him for a German Anabaptist And now we find this Considerer complaining of some Pamphleteers that write ridiculously Sophistical and unreasonable Reasons that tell stories he saith of Edgar Athelin William the Conquerour Arthur Plantagenet and King John that write Antichristian and Fanatical Logick never heard of until the Spirit of Belial revealed it to Oliver and the Rump I believe if there be any such Pamphlet this Pamphleteer is the Author of it or some of his Complices to the purpose that there might seem some one worse than his own and that he might be able to quarrel with and confute and do advantage to his bad Cause by some worse Reasonings than he would seem to be Master of or than his Cause is capable of which is not capable of a good one But what he says cannot possibly be true of any Pamphlet but rather than he will not be slandering he
become Zealots He is a Prince that can deliberate and consider and will conclude that it is better for him to betake himself to a Monastery now before he hath filled the Land with Blood and Slaughter and all the mischiefs that the hellish Plot designs upon us than to take Sanctuary in one hereafter loaded with the melancholy considerations of a lost design and intolerable guilt if he himself should chance to survive and not perish ingloriously in the enterprize never to be gathered to his Fathers and shut out of the Sepulchres of Kings He is a great lover of his Brother as he ought in gratitude to be who lets him live and in his good opinion too after he had departed from his Allegiance and become a Member of another Hostile Polity and Regimen and after in consequence thereof the King's Life is brought in conspicuous danger Besides that it was natural and necessary that attempts upon the Life of the King should ensue upon his publick declaration of himself to be a Papist And we cannot without thinking too meanly of him think him without a foresight thereof there remains therefore no way for him to avoid the guilt of his Brother's Murder we tremble at the probability of it than by renouncing the Crown The King cannot in probability die before him except he falls to the Interest of that Religion which his Highness doth profess So that the Duke will relinquish nothing by the consenting to the Bill but the hopes to succeed upon his Brother's Murder but he would not the one so virtuous we will think him to obtain the other Admit him to be King he must be a King without Subjects for he must be a Slave to one part of the people to destroy the other these may not be the other will not be his Subjects To be an open Enemy is more Princely than to submit to the sordid methods of Falshood and Treachery than to betray us and deceive us in the confidence we justly should have in him if he should succeed to the Crown by a legal appointment He hath already departed from the Government which is Treason in a common person but we will give it in him an honester name and call him onely an Enemy to our State and Religion and his departure to be an overt declaration of Hostility let him therefore be consistent with himself purchase the Government by Conquest by the assistance of the Arms of France his Popish Adherents and home-bred Traitors But let him not assume the Crown by Title and Succession under obligations to govern by Law and to preserve us in our Religion which is our Legal Right and more precious to us than any thing else the Law entitles us unto Let him not add falshood to his mistaken and cruel zeal and do all the mischiefs the Plot designs while he pretends to Govern Let him openly assault us Miscreants subdue us Infidels that already stand Cursed and Excommunicated whom he hath Warrant enough from his Religion to destroy with an utter destruction He is an excellent Son of King Charles the First of blessed Memory who died a Martyr for the Government of Church and State and lost his Life as well as his Government when he could not preserve it any longer by his Sword And do you think that James his Son who carries the Royal Name of his Grandfather though the first of England yet the Sixth of that Name in Scotland will suffer the Government to be altered and to be a King and no King It is more just for him to chuse an Exclusion from the Succession than to suffer the Government to be changed we must therefore suppose him to be willing rather to consent to the Bill and renounce the Succession conformably to the recent example of his never-to-be-forgotten Father than to consent to or be bound by any Act of Parliament that shall alter the Government They are not his Friends nor agreeable to him that would spoil the Government more valuable in his esteem as well as his Father's than a personal Reign That would make him a King in mockery That conspire against the Government it self which he will not he ought not to sustain and endure as long as there is any Iron and Steel in the hands or Blood in the Veins of Loyal Roman Catholicks He is an equal Prince and will not take it so much to Heart that he sees the People of his Nativity not stupid Sots but that they can be sensible of the dangers that he urgeth them with and provide apt remedies against the evils which threaten us But if these Reasons will not obtain his express Consent to that Law for his Exclusion they will be allowed Inducements sufficient enough to pass it and conclude his Assent for the nature of a Law is to be first reasonable and to make those willing that should be consenting to it as reasonable and fit but are not and to render them obedient and submitted For this is one of the greatest benefits of Government that they that cannot or will not chuse what is best for themselves the Laws will chuse for them with regard to the Publick Good For the better clearing the matter of the Constitutions of this Realm in relation to the Succession I thought it necessary to add the substance of an Act of Parliament yet in force made 13 Elizabethae 13 Elizebthae Cap. 1. An Act whereby certain Offences are made Treason FOrasmuch as it is of some doubted whether the Laws and Statutes of this Realm remaining at this present in force are vallable and sufficient enough for the surety and preservation of the Queens most Royal Person in whom consisteth all the happiness and comfort of the whole State and Subjects of the Realm Which thing all Faithful Loving and Dutiful Subjects ought and will with all careful study and zeal cnosider foresee and provide for By the neglecting and passing over whereof with winking Eyes thâ—…e might happen to grow the subversion and ruine of the quiet and most Happy State and present Government of this Realm which God defend Therefore c. to Declare c. during her Maiesties life that the Right of the Crown was in any other Person should be Treason And such Person that should during her Maiesties Life Vsurp the Crown or the Royal Stile Title or Dignity of the Crown or Realm of England c. they and every of them so offending shall be utterly disabled during their natural Lives onely to have or enjoy the Crown or Realm of England or the Style Title or Dignity thereof at any time in Succession Inheritance or otherwise after the Decease of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen as if such Person were dead any Law Custom Pretence or matter whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding After which these words follow And be it further Enacted That if any Person shall in any wise hold and affirm or maintain That the Common Laws of this Realm not altered